SERIOUSLY WICKED – Tina Connolly

This was a wickedly fun little book that should have a lot of appeal to teen readers.

In Seriously Wicked by Tina Connolly, Camillia lives with her adopted mother, a wicked witch (Sarmine Scarabouche) who is trying to teach Camillia how to become a witch, though Camillia rebels against this nasty parental figure. The final straw for Camillia is when Sarmine summons a demon who inhabits the body of the good-looking boy Camillia has a serious crush on.

What isn’t to like about this book? Everything about this appeals to younger readers (and to me, an older reader, as well). The fantasy element is as strong as you find in something like a Harry Potter book, but the tie to the world we live in is very tight. Spells, we learn, are not the easy flick of the wrist and a latin verse, but they first must be deciphered, making a math word problem look easy.

The angst of being a teen doesn’t go away when you are studying witchcraft from a nasty witch (“Witches are naturally nasty … it’s one of our most prized traits…”). It possibly gets worse, but there’s still the everyday details to live with (“I was in my second-best jeans — the ones that didn’t understand my butt and showed too much sock…”) which make taming a demon preferable to dealing with a bunch of girls with major crushes.

I smiled all through this book. It was just fun. And sometimes that’s all you want from a book.

And through all this, I still managed to be surprised at some of the revelations that come through the book. This is a nice bonus,since I wasn’t expecting to be caught unaware.

And finally … we know we don’t judge a book by its cover, and this is in no way a ‘judgment,’ but the cover, as displayed above, is such a PERFECT complement to the book. It definitely sets the absolute right tone for the story inside. Bravo, Tor Teen!

Based on this reading, I will eagerly seek out more books by Tina Connolly.

Looking for a good book? Seriously Wicked by Tina Connolly is seriously good fun with very strong appeal to anyone who enjoys magic/fantasy and teen/YA books.

I received a digital copy from the publisher, through Netgalley, in exchange for an honest review.